Female Yahoo executive accused and sued for sexual harassment

A female Yahoo executive has been accused of sexually harassing a female employee who worked under her.

Nan Shi has accused senior director of engineering Maria Zhang in a lawsuit of coercing her into sex several times, always under the promise of "a bright future at Yahoo," the San Jose Mercury News reports. Shi was forced into both "oral and digital sex."

Shi claims that she eventually refused to have sex with Zhang, which resulted in the high-level executive submitting poor performance reviews for her. The principal software engineer says that she was also pulled from the role of project lead.

Zhang "stated she could take away everything from her including her job, stocks, and future if she did not do what she wanted," Shi's lawsuit says. The employee also had "to work grueling hours and compose work emails over the weekend at the apartment, sometimes right after sex."

After reporting the harassment to human resources at Yahoo, Shi says she was placed on unpaid leave before eventually being let go, all while nothing happened to Zhang.

According to Reuters, the complaint says Yahoo refused to look into Shi's accusations and eventually moved to get rid of her.

In an emailed statement, a Yahoo representative said, "There is absolutely no basis or truth to the allegations against Maria Zhang. Maria is an exemplary Yahoo executive and we intend to fight vigorously to clear her name."

The lawsuit, which names both Zhang and Yahoo as defendants, asks for punitive and monetary damages.